Pharmaceutical companies lose an estimated $188 billion annually in revenues in the U.S. because patients fail to take their prescribed medications, according to a study by consulting firm Capgemini.

Even for the countries in Western Europe such as the Netherlands where medication is fully covered, adherence is still a major concern and growing issue.

In the U.S. Medicare payment reforms aim to place an emphasis on preventive health measures affecting other sectors in health care, pharmaceutical companies are no longer alone in facing poor medication adherence.

The question is are these false promises or actual achievable objectives because of wrong targeting?

Analysts welcome focus on cancer drugs for poorest countries but caution that more work needs to be done.

Public-health experts have applauded drug giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) for unveiling new patent policies that could make it easier for people in the world’s poorest countries to access drugs. But they say that other companies will need to follow suit if patients are to see significant improvements in access to medicines — particularly for much-needed cancer drugs.(...) - Nature by Asher Mullard, 5 April 2016

To save millions of dollars and dramatically improve reproducibility, protein-binding reagents must be defined by their sequences and produced as recombinant proteins, say Andrew Bradbury, Andreas Plückthun and 110 co-signatories. (...) - Nature, by Andrew Bradbury & Andreas Plückthun, 04 February 2015

Julien Hering, PhD's insight:

#reproducibility offer the possibility in #research to save a lots of money and time. It's a part of #openresearch that let academic and R&D researchers to collaborate more openly and avoid reproduce negative results, share protocols, #opendata, #openaccess... Here a case in Biotech

Guidelines that forbid patents on a wide array of natural products, phenomena and principles have many in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries worried about the future of their business. (...) - by Erika Check-Hayden, Nature, 08 July 2014

In this month’s Windback Wednesday series, we’re all about entrepreneurship: what it takes to be one, how to become one and more. But if you’re based in London, it’s not so easy. Although it’s got the brains and research centres to make it a hub, setting up shop in London is the tricky part. In this podcast, I speak to Kit Malthouse, the Deputy Mayor of London for Business and Enterprise, and find out how London is preparing to become the next biotech hub. (...) by Julie Gould, Nature, 23 April 2014

Y Combinator, a company that backs technology start-ups, is famous for its early support of successful online services such as Airbnb and Dropbox. It historically has invested a few thousand dollars into web-based businesses that require only small grants to get up and running at their earliest stages. But the programme is now expanding its reach to back biotechnology start-ups, says company president Sam Altman. (...) - by Richard Van Noorden, Nature, 23 April 2014

After years in the doldrums, research into neurological disorders is about to undergo a major change of direction.

In a sign that psychiatric-disease research is entering a new era, the pharmaceutical giant Novartis has hired an expert in neural circuitry, rather than pharmacology, to head its relaunched neuroscience division. (...) - by Alison Abbot, Nature, 08 October 2013

We conducted randomized clinical trials to examine the impact of direct-to-consumer advertisements on the efficacy of a branded drug. We compared the objectively measured, physiological effect of Claritin (Merck & Co.), a leading antihistamine medication, across subjects randomized to watch a movie spliced with advertisements for Claritin or advertisements for Zyrtec (McNeil), a competitor antihistamine. Among subjects who test negative for common allergies, exposure to Claritin advertisements rather than Zyrtec advertisements increases the efficacy of Claritin. We conclude that branded drugs can interact with exposure to television advertisements. (...) - by Kamenica Eet al., PNAS August 6, 2013 vol. 110 no. 32 12931-12935

Neurotrophins and their receptors modulate multiple signalling pathways to regulate neuronal survival and to maintain axonal and dendritic networks and synaptic plasticity. Neurotrophins have potential for the treatment of neurological diseases. However, their therapeutic application has been limited owing to their poor plasma stability, restricted nervous system penetration and, importantly, the pleiotropic actions that derive from their concomitant binding to multiple receptors. One strategy to overcome these limitations is to target individual neurotrophin receptors — such as tropomyosin receptor kinase A (TRKA), TRKB, TRKC, the p75 neurotrophin receptor or sortilin — with small-molecule ligands. Such small molecules might also modulate various aspects of these signalling pathways in ways that are distinct from the programmes triggered by native neurotrophins. By departing from conventional neurotrophin signalling, these ligands might provide novel therapeutic options for a broad range of neurological indications. (...) - by Frank M. Longo& Stephen M. Massa, Nature Reviews Drug Discovery12,507–525(2013)

So, do drug companies really spend more money on marketing than on R&D? In the Pipeline takes a look at that contention, and the cold hard facts are these: Probably not. But it's hard to tell for sure.

Derek Lowe's blog dug up the numbers and calculated spending as a percentage of revenue. In the case of R&D, that's pretty easy to determine; companies break that number out as its own line item. As for marketing, sales expenses are lumped into a category dubbed SG&A, or sales, general and administrative expenses. And as Lowe notes, that category includes lots more than sales spending. Executive salaries, for instance. (...) - by Tracy Staton, FiercePharma, May 21, 2013

Target-identification and mechanism-of-action studies have important roles in small-molecule probe and drug discovery. Biological and technological advances have resulted in the increasing use of cell-based assays to discover new biologically active small molecules. Such studies allow small-molecule action to be tested in a more disease-relevant setting at the outset, but they require follow-up studies to determine the precise protein target or targets responsible for the observed phenotype. Target identification can be approached by direct biochemical methods, genetic interactions or computational inference. In many cases, however, combinations of approaches may be required to fully characterize on-target and off-target effects and to understand mechanisms of small-molecule action. (...) - by Schenone Met al., Nature Chemical Biology9,232–240(2013)

Which company takes the title? It may come as no surprise that pharma giant Pfizer claims the lead spot, however the sequence that follows shows interesting trends. In this article I’ll share bioscience companies with ideal digital presence and touch on available apps to score yours. The performance indictor was the Bio Web Score Absolute, a free tool measuring the digital presence of life science businesses. (...) - Biowebspin Public Place, by Sara Ahmadi, 26/04/2013

US contract research organizations are multiplying to meet drug-makers' outsourcing needs.

US drug-makers are outsourcing more and more of their research and development, mainly to contract research organizations, according to figures released in July by the US National Science Foundation (NSF). The shift could be good news for researchers seeking positions in industry. In 1991, pharmaceutical companies spent about US$800 million on external research and development, but that skyrocketed to $13 billion in 2011, says John Jankowski, head of research and development statistics at the NSF. That growth outstrips that of any other sector. In 1991, industrial extramural research spending totalled $3.3 billion, but by 2011, spending had risen to $25.3 billion for domestic companies alone. Pharmaceutical firms' share of that total was 23% in 1991, but ballooned to 51% by 2011. Jankowski says that much of the increase comes from the outsourcing of clinical trials. The number of US contract research organizations has risen to match the demand, from around 800 in 2000 to more than 3,100 by the end of 2011, according to the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development in Boston, Massachusetts. - Nature 512, 106, 06 August 2014

Agency says success of new molecule for sickle cell disease shows its drug development model is working.

For the first time, a drug being developed in part by a controversial new National Institutes of Health (NIH) center aimed at speeding drug development has been picked up by a major pharmaceutical company. Baxter International has acquired the biotech company developing Aes-103, a small molecule for treating sickle cell disease. (...) - By Jocelyn Kaiser, Science, 9 July 2014

In this interview, I speak to Dr. Rob Carlson, a Principal at Biodesic, an engineering and strategic consulting firm in Seattle that provides services to governments and corporations around the globe. At the broadest level, Dr. Carlson is interested in the future role of biology as a human technology. He is the author of the book Biology is Technology: The Promise, Peril, and New Business of Engineering Life, published in 2010 by Harvard University Press; it received the PROSE award for the Best Engineering and Technology Book of 2010 and was named to the Best Books of 2010 lists by writers at both The Economist and ForeignPolicy.com. Carlson is a frequent international speaker and has served as an advisor to such diverse organisations as The Hastings Center, the PICNIC Design Festival, the UN, the OECD, the US Government, and companies ranging in size from start-ups to members of the Fortune 100. Carlson earned a doctorate in Physics from Princeton University in 1997. (...) - by Julie Gould, Nature Jobs Blog, 18 April 2014

Last fall, microbial ecologist Kei Fujimura took time away from her lab work to hunt down people with inflammatory bowel disease on Facebook. The postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), was doing a bit of market research, in hopes of starting a company that would offer people with Crohn’s disease and colitis personalized microbiome sequencing data that could help them manage their conditions. She and a fellow postdoc “thought we had a pretty good shot” at commercializing the idea, she says. (...) - by Kelly Servick, Science, 24 April 2014

It's becoming essential that pharma embrace digital transformation urgently to survive, but the challenge companies face is knowing how and where to begin.

The pharmaceutical industry is currently facing a time of unprecedented change. Coming fast on the heels of the recent economic recession, the new digital economy is reshaping the way we do business. Technology now has a huge influence over business growth and capability, and the time for resisting is rapidly reaching an end. Big pharma has typically been slow to accept change, partly because of a conservative culture and partly because of fear of regulatory consequences. (...) - by Ash Rshi, March 13, 2014

Julien Hering, PhD's insight:

Digital transformation for big pharma at all levels : marketing, medical affairs... but also in R&D, virtual teams, and e-health!

Eli Lilly and Co on Thursday said its experimental drug to treat major depression failed to meet it primary goal in three late-stage trials and the drugmaker will not seek approval of the medicine for that condition.

The drug edivoxetine, a member of a family of medicines called norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors, was tested in combination with a member of a widely used class of depression treatments called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) in each of the three trials.

But after eight weeks of treatment, the combination of drugs that included edivoxetine did not prove superior to the SSRIs alone, thereby failing the main goal of the study. - PharmaGossip, December 5, 2013

A list of 25 biotech companies, ranked by their market capitalization for the latest quarter that they furnished figures on their numbers of outstanding shares.

Last year, GEN published a list of the top 25 biotech companies. So, who would make the list this year? Find out by checking out this updated list of 25 biotech companies ranked by their market capitalization for the latest quarter that they furnished figures on their numbers of outstanding shares.

Overall, the past year has been mostly very good to biotechs where market cap is concerned, the result of a stock market surge that has not only lifted prices well into double-digits for most of the companies on the list, but also finally jumpstarted the market for initial public offerings after several years of spinning its wheels. (...) Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology ews, July 22, 2013

A court has ordered the European Medicines Agency (EMA) to keep data from two drug companies confidential, running counter to EMA's recent push to share clinical and nonclinical information as widely as possible. The temporary injunction from the General Court of the European Union backs two drug firms on the U.S. side of the pond: AbbVie, headquartered in North Chicago, Illinois, and InterMune in Brisbane, California. (...) - ScienceInsider, by Jennifer Couzin-Frankel on 30 April 2013

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